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Lagunitas owner hints that he received a ‘420’ cease-and-desist letter from SweetWater

Posted on July 8, 2013 at 8:57 pm by Adam Nason

(Petaluma, CA) – Lagunitas Brewing owner, Tony Magee, has tweeted some good stuff as of late, much of which we will get to, time-permitting, on Tuesday.

The latest tweets bring us back once again to “crowded spaces” as Magee calls them, less affectionately known around these parts as trademark disputes. Magee says that Lagunitas has received a letter from an Atlanta brewery demanding that he “never ever use the term 420 again.” Though he never identifies “SweetWater,” the brewery’s identity is easily deduced from the tweets, not to mention its legal ownership of the phrase in the eyes of the USPTO when it comes to beer.

Merit-wise, it would be a strange request because Lagunitas doesn’t actually have a ‘420’ brand. The company does lightly use it in marketing materials, mainly around the actual 4/20 date when it releases a beer called Waldo’s Special Ale. Magee’s affinity for the ‘4/20’ lifestyle is also well-documented.

A spokesman for SweetWater said he was unaware of the matter as of Monday night and had no comment.

In the world of crowded spaces, a brewery out of Atlanta sent me a letter today demanding that we never ever use the term 420 again…